Gleaming Black Death
by ChaosValkyire
Summary: One man, his cyclone, and the twistings of protoculture


Rush was on his hands and knees gasping for breath, the helmet of his cyclone armor tossed aside, covered in dirt, dust, and blood. Sweat was pouring down his face, his eyes were bulging, and his head was exploding with pain. He had killed them, all of them, the whole town. It wasn't his fault, he knew it wasn't...something had made him loose control; something had taken a grip on his mind, and used his body and his mecha. The pain increased and he moaned, struggling to get out of his armor. Somehow, he forced his way out of it, sweat covered body falling face first into the dirt. He hugged his knees to his chest, the pain finally fading now that he was free of the evil machine, and the evil protoculture that powered it. Rush had always suspected that protoculture had some sort of higher connection to the workings of things.but know he knew for sure. The mecha lay there ominously, as if grinning at him. Rush shut his eyes, and memories flooded back...  
  
EARTH ORBIT  
  
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He knew they were all dead. They had come to re-take their own planet, and they had already failed. His Alpha fighter's radar warned him that invid mecha were approaching fast, when the clearance to engage came. He slammed the throttle home, and the alpha leapt forward. The invid troopers came tearing up at them, energy discs flying, and pincers flexing. Rush loosed missiles at the impossibly huge swarm, and watch every missile strikes its target. Within a minute, every missile had been fired and every one scored a kill. And still the void seemed to crawl with invid. He began attacking patterns, using the lasers to burn fatal, exploding wounds into his enemies. And then he saw it...the capital ships entering the atmosphere...and exploding. Fighters instantly broke off to deal with the invid forces, but it was far to late. The last surviving transport looked like it was going to make it by the time Rush arrived. The quickly dwindling amount of fighter cover was in a good defense stance, when the worst thing imaginable happened. A Beta fighter, launching a salvo of missiles, had a miss fire. The warhead detonated in the tube, blowing a huge piece of the beat off, killing the pilot. The pilot must have spasmed as he died...as the beta's thrusters ignited, and it smashed into one of the transports engines. Rush watched in terror as explosions over took the massive vessel. Rush yelled in pure rage, and went into frenzy. He went tearing in at the huge swarm of invid, determined to kill them all or die trying. He switched to guardian, and squeezed the trigger. The laser gun pod lit the night, sweeping back and forth, the computer struggling to keep up with his kills. Dozens of invid mecha exploded and dozens more still as he swept the gun pod back and forth and up and down. Then his altimeter alarm went off. He looked, and saw he was beginning to stall and plummet. He switched to fighter, fearing the worst, and struggled to pull up. He thought all was lost; when the engines fired, and his fighter began accelerate. There was no way he would make it. He shifted to guardian, and transferred all power to keeping him afloat. He popped the cockpit and climbed onto the fuelselauge. With practiced skill he freed the cyclone. Quickly, he got into his armor and donned the cyclone in battle armor mode. It appeared he had been given a new model. The cyclone was painted jet black, and was equipped with ceramic vibration swords and a shield on the right arm, and a small laser weapon on the other. A hand held heavy laser rifle was near it. The alpha began to slowly fall to earth, foot thrusters loosing power. Slowly he descended to 200 feet, and then they cut out all together. The guardian went from a slow descent to a pin wheeling free fall. Rush was thrown off far earlier than he had hoped for. He did have one chance...he could use the cyclone to fly...taking off from a jump or standing position. It would probably burn the engines out from his falling speed. He waited until he was a hundred feet, and hit his boosters. Incredibly, he was floating aloft in seconds, a good fifty feet above ground. slowly, he brought himself down. He touched down, and killed the boosters. Rush was quite amazed. Not only did this new model have powerful weaponry, but amazing engines. He remembered his orders and looked to the north, shifting to cycle mode. He wheeled off into the night.  
  
A SMALL TOWN JUST SOUTH OF AN INVID OUTPUST HIVE  
  
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Rush pulled into a small town around 2 AM two days later. It appeared his cyclone had no need for protoculture fuel. It seemed to generate it, and never needed to recharge itself. This fascinated Rush, who was however; quite pleased he had no need for additional fuel. He started looking for a place to stay...when something happened. He saw something on the horizon, and the next thing he knew...a building in front of him was a smoking crater. He quickly converted to battle armor mode. The cyclone almost seemed alive, like it was desperate to do what it was designed to do. He felt impulsive, but leapt into the air to meet a good thirty-invid mecha. All of them were armored troopers, with the exception for one...which must have been a new design...heavily armed and probably heavier armor. The laser rifle would dispatch the troopers but the new design may require some heavier work. Rush leapt into action, firing the laser rifle. Searing red shots smashed into armor, melting it to slag, and destroying the mecha. The invid troopers opened fire, plasma globules filling the air. People in the street had come out screaming...and stopped to watch the fight. Rush didn't disappoint them. He moved like a shadow, darting here and there, one minute in the line of fire, the next behind his target, firing heavy laser rounds into its back, destroying it. He went on and on, killing trooper after trooper. When it was down to three troopers, the new model engaged him. It came in at a high speed, and opened up with pulse cannons under the chin. The light rounds pinged off the cyclones amazingly strong armor. Rush had been hit dead on by a medium laser round from a street fight he had witnessed...the man had missed. They shot hit him right in the chest...and he didn't even feel the heat. The three pincers had moved to circle him, and Rush raised his rifle to fire. But just before he could...one of the troopers behind him moved to capture him, getting him into a bear hug, pinning him against the body and pincer. However this was no ordinary cyclone. Rush fired the mounted laser cannon, blowing the invid's sensor eye out, fluid gushing out. The mecha went dead and fell. Rush hovered, an aimed his laser cannon, seeing as his rifle had dropped. He fired once, twice, three times, on shot for the three remaining mecha. The new model dodged, but the other two mecha vanished in a flash of light. It was down to him and this vastly superior invid "commander" as he dubbed it. The commander didn't disappoint him. It came tearing in at him, chin lasers blaring. Rush brought up the shield on his right arm to deflect the shots. He fired the laser cannon, and watched as is reflected harmlessly off the commander's armor. The commander was seconds away, and rush had no time to dodge. He curled into a ball, and brought the shield up again. The commander tackled him, and he went sailing backwards. Air friction stopped him a good hundred feet away. He looked at his opponent, and extended the ceramic sword. It was about three feet long, double the norm. It began vibrating at a super high frequency, rendering it able to easily slice through the armor of even a beta fighter. He mashed his boosters, and came at the invid, which began aiming at him with the two massive plasma cannons on its shoulders. Rush began an evasive charge, dodging, and firing his laser cannon to distract the large mecha. Ten feet from the giant invid mecha, he stopped, and launched high into the sky. The mecha fired a huge blast of energy from its cannons, the twin beams forming one. Rush let go of his engines, and came into a fall. The sword sliced into the invid's armor, and split the mecha in two. It detonated in Rush's face, sending him falling back to earth so far below with a sickening crunch. He awoke seconds later, unharmed thanks to his super cyclone. He stood, and felt a tap on his shoulder. He spun, and an armored hand smashed the barrel of his laser cannon, rendering it useless. Before he could raise the shield and extend the sword, the fist smashed his chest, knocking him down. Another cyclone, identical to him, stood above him, laser cannon aiming at his face. Rush wouldn't have it. He fired one of his eight RPGs, the heavy round exploding against the other cyclones chest, knocking it back. Rush extended the massive blade, and it thrummed. His opponent did the same. The two stood there, then went at it. Rush had extended his second blade as well, and spun into his first strike. The two blades met one, and a duel began. His opponent lashed out, and Rush began to parry for his life. The enemy was using only one blade, Rush was using two, and it was still almost hopeless. He retreated in an awkward backpedal motion, swords gleaming in moonlight. Rush fired his boosters and leapt backwards onto a rooftop. His enemy followed, but Rush made an unexpected move. He leapt up at the last second, swords coming down into the roof space his enemy had just occupied. He did however, not quite score a hit. He crashed through the roof, people screaming as he did. The other cyclone nearly landed on him, but he scooted backwards along the ground, using his boosters, while firing another RPG at his enemy's head. The mecha simply swung its sword, slicing the grenade in half. Rush was not impressed. With the reaction time this mecha gave you, it was a small feat. He leapt to his feet, just in time to avoid a laser blast. He lashed out again, slashing and striking while all the time spinning for added speed and power. Slowly, he forced his enemy back towards a wall. Just as it looked like Rush had his enemy pinned, he fired his boosters and shot through the roof. Rush followed him into the air, where the ballad of sword strikes began again. The constant clang, clang, clang of steel and sparks flying everywhere was beginning to aggravate the townspeople. Rush fought on and on and on, his twin blades never ceasing motion. Finally...he got a strike in. With a quick fake, he removed his enemy's legs. Blood poured out, down to the ground. That's when he lost it. Something took control of him, and he swept throughout the town, killing anything that moved. He was not himself for days, and when people talked of him, they referred to him as the gleaming Black Death. Rush had killed them all in the end, before he was released by the evil twistings of protoculture in his mind.  
  
RUSH'S CAMP  
  
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It was just to much for rush to think about. He donned his armor, and extended the sword. He placed the note on the ground, and slammed the blade into his stomach. He fell, dead, to the ground, where he laid undiscovered for years. But protoculture has its ways and its weapons, and it knew that its time would come... 


End file.
